Audre Lorde: Strongly woman-identified women where love between women is open and
possible, beyond physical in every way. There are lesbians, God knows . . . if you came up
through lesbian circles in the forties and fifties in New York . . . who were not feminist
and would not call themselves feminists. But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian
consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women. I can't really define it in
sexual terms alone although our sexuality is so energizing why not enjoy it too? But that
comes back to the whole issue of what the erotic is. There are so many ways of describing
"lesbian." Part of the lesbian consciousness is an absolute recognition of the
erotic within our lives and, taking that a step further, dealing with the erotic not only
in sexual terms. . . .

While Black sisters don't like to hear this, I would have to say that all Black women
are lesbians because we were raised in the remnants of a basically matriarchal society no
matter how oppressed we may have been by patriarchy. We're all dykes, including our
mommas. Let's really start getting past the shibboleths and taboos. They don't really
matter. Being able to recognize that the function of poetry or any art is to ennoble and
empower us in a way that's not separate from our living, that belief is African in origin.

There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself--whether it's Black,
woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc.--because that's the piece that they need to key in
to. They want to dismiss everything else. But once you do that, then you've lost because
then you become acquired or bought by that particular essence of yourself, and you've
denied yourself all of the energy that it takes to keep all those others in jail. Only by
learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat. You know
how fighting fish do it? They blow bubbles and in each one of those bubbles is an egg and
they float the egg up to the surface. They keep this whole heavy nest of eggs floating,
and they're constantly repairing it. It's as if they live in both elements. That's
something that we have to do, too, in our own lives--keep it all afloat. It's possible to
take that as a personal metaphor and then multiply it to a people, a race, a sex, a time.
If we can keep this thing going long enough, if we can survive and teach what we know,
we'll make it. But the question is a matter of the survival and the teaching. That's what
our work comes down to. No matter where we key into it, it's the same work, just different
pieces of ourselves doing it.

Black writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are
supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to
silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by
racism. That is particularly true for black women writers who have refused to be
delineated by male-establishment models of femininity, and who have dealt with their
sexuality as an accepted part of their identity. . . .

When you are a member of an out-group, and you challenge others with whom you share
this outsider position to examine some aspect of their lives that distorts differences
between you, then there can be a great deal of pain. In other words, when people of a
group share an oppression, there are certain strengths that they build together. But there
are also certain vulnerabilities. For instance, talking about racism to the women's
movement results in "Huh, don't bother us with that. Look, we're all sisters, please
don't rock the boat." Talking to the black community about sexism results in pretty
much the same thing. You get a "Wait, wait... wait a minute: we're all black
together. Don't rock to boat." In our work and in our living, we must recognize that
difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction. .
. .

With respect to myself specifically, I feel that not to be open about any of the
different "people" within my identity, particularly the "mes" who are
challenged by a status quo, is to invite myself and other women, by my example, to live a
lie. In other words, I would be giving in to a myth of sameness which I think can destroy
us.

Today the red-herring of lesbian-baiting is being used in the Black community to
obscure the true face of racism/sexism. Black women sharing close ties with each other,
politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men. Too frequently, however,
some Black men attempt to rule by fear those Black women who are more ally than enemy.
These tactics are expressed as threats of emotional rejection: "Their poetry wasn't
too bad but I couldn't take all those lezzies." The Black man saying this is
code-warning every Black woman present interested in a relationship with a man--and most
Black women are--that (1) if she wishes to have her work considered by him she must eschew
any other allegiance except to him and (2) any woman who wishes to retain his friendship
and/or support had better not be "tainted" by woman-identified interests. . . .

All too often the message comes loud and clear to Black women from Black men: "I
am the only prize worth having and there are not too many of me, and remember, I can
always go elsewhere. So if you want me, you'd better stay in your place which is away from
one another, or I will call you 'lesbian' and wipe you out." Black women are
programmed to define ourselves within this male attention and to compete with each other
for it rather than to recognize and move upon our common interests.

The tactic of encouraging horizontal hostility to becloud more pressing issues of
oppression is by no means new, nor limited to relations between women. The same tactic is
used to encourage separation between Black women and Black men. In discussions around the
hiring and firing of Black faculty at universities, the charge is frequently heard that
Black women are more easily hired than are Black men. For this reason, Black women's
problems of promotion and tenure are not to be considered important since they are only
"taking jobs away from Black men." Here again, energy is being wasted on
fighting each other over the pitifully few crumbs allowed us rather than being used, in a
joining of forces to fight for a more realistic ratio of Black faculty. The latter would
be a vertical battle against racist policies of the academic structure itself, one which
could result in real power and change. It is the structure at the top which desires
changelessness and which profits from these apparently endless kitchen wars.